Hunt: Showdown Celebrates One Year Anniversary

Crytek’s Early Access game team looks back at a year of community-driven development.

Exactly one year ago today, Crytek released their multi player bounty hunting game Hunt: Showdown on Steam Early Access. In that time, the Hunt team has released 16 updates and patches, adding a new map, two new times of day, additional AI, a quick play game mode, challenges, and over a dozen weapons to the game throughout the year. Today the team is celebrating by looking back at everything they have accomplished and kicking off a 30% discount on Steam, running from now until March 4th at 10 am PT/ 1pm ET/ 7pm CEST.

Performance improvements have been an important part of the Early Access process, and many of the updates have focused on increasing the Hunt experience for players with all kinds of hardware specifications. Two performance patches were released right out of the gate, and then Hunt’s first big updates added more content: five new scoped weapons, two tactical bombs, 11 Hunter outfits, 12 new traits, and fall damage. Updates have kept up a steady pace ever since. The team has continued to steadily update the game on a regular basis since the game’s launch.

“I remember launch day like it was yesterday. The entire team got together in the lounge at the Frankfurt office, so we could all be there when Hunt went live, and celebrate how much we’d achieved. You could feel the excitement in that room. It was a huge milestone for the team,” said Hunt Producer Fatih Özbayram.

Afterwards, Update 2.0 kept the ball rolling with the addition of the Dark Sight Boost, looting, bear traps, the hive bomb, a flare pistol, and the Beastface and Tomahawk traits. These were soon followed by fog, crossbows, throwing knives, weapons with silencers, a combat axe, the Bolt Thrower and Bolt Seer traits, a reporting system, mission accolades, and more equipment. Next, the Water Devil, the ducks, water-based sound traps, liquid fire bombs, waxed dynamite, and rank and prestige badges were added as well. And that only brings the retrospective up to Update 2.3.

Update 2.4 was, again, focused on performance, while 2.5 brought trainee mode, new server regions, and weapon-balancing changes to the mix. With Update 3.0, Hunt celebrated the addition of its second map, Lawson Delta, as well as the addition of a skill-based matchmaking system, movement inertia system, corpse looting, anti-teaming mechanisms, and Nvidia Highlights.

Update 4.0 was another big update, with the addition of an all-new game mode—Quick Play—for those who enjoy playing solo or wanted a shorter match time. Alongside the new mode, Hunt also got daily and weekly in-game challenges, as well as gunplay and meta changes in 4.0. This was followed by 4.1., which added night-time lighting on Lawson Delta and holiday content.

With the release of each update, the team carefully tracked community feedback, taking their comments to heart, and modifying the development roadmap to reflect what active players were saying about how to improve the game and make it an even more fun experience. The result combines the community wishes with the team’s own vision, and has made Hunt what it is today.

Hunt’s latest update, Update 4.2., focused exclusively on performance, and community members can test Update 5.0 on Hunt’s Test Server right now. One of 5.0's big highlights is a new AI character called the Immolator. Players can get a preview of this fast and persistent AI in a new teaser video or by playing a few rounds of Hunt on the Test Server.

“It has been a busy year, and I’m proud of what the team has been able to accomplish with Hunt in that time,” said Crytek CEO Avni Yerli. “Everyone has worked really hard to make Hunt what it is today. Developing the game alongside such an engaged community has been a truly rewarding experience, and Hunt’s second year is going to be even more exciting.”


About Hunt: Showdown

Hunt: Showdown is a competitive first-person bounty hunting game that packs the thrill of survival games into a match-based format. Set in Louisiana in 1895, the game boasts a mixture of PvP and PvE elements that creates a uniquely tense experience. It’s not just the creatures who are a threat—it’s every Hunter on the map. In the classic game mode, a match of Hunt pits ten players—playing solo or in teams of two—against each other as they race to take out gruesome beasts for a bounty they must collect and get off of the map, while Hunt’s quickplay mode offers a shorter match for solo players to scavenge for weapons as they compete for a diminishing pool of bounty. The higher the risk, the higher the reward–but a single mistake could cost everything. Hunt is available now on Steam. For more information, visit https://www.huntshowdown.com/.

Jennifer Willis

Senior PR Manager, Crytek

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About Crytek

Crytek is an independent videogame developer, publisher, and technology provider dedicated to pushing the boundaries of gaming with its cutting-edge 3D game development solution CRYENGINE. With headquarters in Frankfurt am Main (Germany) and studios in Kiev (Ukraine), and Istanbul (Turkey), Crytek has created multiple award-winning titles, including the original Far Cry, the Crysis series, Ryse: Son of Rome, The Climb, Robinson: The Journey and Hunt: Showdown. Crytek delivers fun and innovative gaming experiences for PC, consoles, and VR and continues to grow its reach in the games-as-a-service market. Every Crytek game is created with CRYENGINE, which can be used by anyone to create games.

For more information visit www.crytek.com and www.cryengine.com.

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